


i’m inside out, you’re underneath

by nightwideopen



Category: BBC Radio 1 RPF, One Direction (Band)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Infidelity, M/M, Magical Realism, No Smut, One Shot, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-23
Updated: 2017-07-23
Packaged: 2018-12-05 18:49:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11584005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightwideopen/pseuds/nightwideopen
Summary: Nick knows that Louis is beautiful but he hates him anyway.





	i’m inside out, you’re underneath

**Author's Note:**

> so... this had to be reposted because of reasons..
> 
>  **Oct 11 2016:**
> 
> so basically i wrote this in a few hours and idk why .. skye gave me the opening sentence and i ran with it. its a mess and im sorry 
> 
> title from Goner by twenty one pilots 
> 
> (i know it probably makes no sense but i spent an hour trying to come up with a title and this is the best i could do i apologise)

“You know, you really are a beautiful liar.”

Louis continues doing up the buttons of his suit jacket, not bothering to turn around. Even being furious with him, it’s hard to ignore his blatant beauty. Being able to see him in the reflection of the full length mirror, examining his appearance, turning this way and that, it’s odd. He looks otherworldly already, and still would even if he wasn’t all done up for this evening. But he keeps fiddling with everything; pulling down his jacket, patting his hair, making sure there aren’t any creases on his pants. He looks perfect, but his insecurities always show the most here, in the mirror of their bedroom just before he leaves the house. 

“We all do what we must to survive in this big, bad world.” He examines his profile in the full-length mirror. “You of all people must know that, Nicholas.”

Nick is lingering in the doorway, using the doorframe to support his weight. The rage is bubbling in his chest, and he knows it's only a matter of time before it ruptures. But tonight is important, and he has to keep it under wraps until it’s over.

Nick smiles gently. “All I know is that I can’t believe a word that comes out of that pretty little mouth of yours.” He tilts his chin at where Louis is struggling to do up his tie. “Need some help with that?”

Their eyes meet in the mirror as Louis sighs, a smirk pulling at his lips. It’s infuriating, the way he's so nonchalant about it, stuffing his hands in his pockets. Baring his throat, Louis waits. 

Nick sidles up behind Louis, arms winding over his shoulders to grab the ends of the tie. He stays silent while he ties it up, letting his anger radiate off him. He knows Louis can see his hands trembling, can feel the nervous heat coming off his body. He’s not trying to hold it in, he wants Louis to know how enraged he is.

“You probably could’ve done it from there, but thanks anyway, love.”

It’s tainted. The word, the sentiment. Nick used to love it, even back when they hated each other and Louis would say it mockingly to piss him off. There was a time when Louis meant it, though, and the way his voice took on a softer tone when he said it to Nick. But now it’s daggers, meant to hurt.

Nick doesn’t let the smile fall from his face. “Fuck you, Lou.” And before Louis can make a snide, sexual comment, “Don’t. Just don’t.”

Louis hums, turns to face Nick. “We’re gonna be late; I’ve still got to warm up the truck.”

“Well, go on then.” Nick steps aside, but only just enough that Louis still brushes against him as he passes.

The room is so much darker like this, when he’s angry. The black cloud in his heart radiates outwards, and he doesn’t mean for it to, but his magic has been off kilter ever since he found out. He’s been hitting himself with doors, exploding nearby vases and spilling nearly every midnight cup of tea he’s tried to have to quell his anxiety about where to go from here. He and Louis’ life together is all he’s known for six years and now he’s going to have to throw it all away.

The mirror cracks. 

Perhaps thinking he could have something real with someone like Louis was where he went wrong. 

The sound of the car engine starting up persuades him to move. Nick trudges out into the corridor and down the marble staircase, his footsteps echoing nauseatingly throughout the whole house. He tucks his keys and wallet into their respective pockets as he passes the kitchen table towards the backyard. It’s too cold to leave the dogs out, so he has to let them out, wait for them to come back in. They wrestle around in the snow for a bit as Nick’s nose grows cold. He could’ve easily warmed himself with his magic on any other day, but these days Nick would probably set himself on fire. It’s endlessly frustrating, not being able to control the only thing he’s ever been sure of. He has to use all of his strength to slide the porch door closed on his own. He’s already frail, and weaker lately. Louis usually helps when he’s feeling unwell like this, when his magic isn’t enough.

His feet are crunching through the snow some moments later, and the slam of the driver’s side door closing makes him cringe.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to drive?” For the first time in weeks, Louis’ tone isn’t condescending. Nick must look awful. “You look awful.”

“Thanks,” he chirps, backing out of the driveway. 

Nick rolls down the windows just to piss Louis off.

“Are you really gonna pull that shit when you saw how long I just spent on my hair?” Louis rushes to roll his window back up. “Nick, it’s fucking below freezing, what the fuck? You’re literally _ill_ , roll up your window.”

Nick snorts. “You care about my well being suddenly?”

“I care about you not dying while I’m a goddamn passenger, roll up the fucking window.”

They’ve had his argument so many times that it’s barely an argument anymore. Nick likes the wind in his face, likes the way it gives his hair an artfully ruffled look while simultaneously clearing his sinuses. He likes feeling in tune with nature, as it usually gives his magic something of a boost. But Louis gets cold easily, likes his hair to stay in place, complains about his eyes drying out. It’s routine, it’s part of them being together.

Nick rolls up the window like he always does. 

The car rolls to a stop, the hum of the heater eating up the silence. It’s not enough to make Nick forget about his vibrating rage, but the warmth beneath him, thanks to Louis persuading him to get a car with heated seats, makes him just a little bit more comfortable with the relative quiet.

“Is this red light always this long?”

Nick is about to open his mouth to release a slew of sarcasm when the entire truck jerks forward. He blacks out for a second, the whiplash hitting him first, but when his visions returns not a second later he’s met with the sight of an eighteen-wheeler coming at them. He doesn’t know why, but he hits the brakes and they come to a complete stop in the middle of the intersection, the headlights growing brighter, getting closer. This isn’t how he’s supposed to die. But he braces himself anyway, closing his eyes, cringing, waiting for the impact and decidedly ignoring Louis’ shouting.

The moment never comes.

It doesn’t come because it seems as though time has frozen altogether. Louis’ shouting has stopped, the lights are stationary.

Nick feels lightheaded. 

He gets his bearings after much too long and hits the gas as hard as he can, propelling the truck out of the intersection and onto the shoulder of the road. Time has apparently resumed, but his head feels as though it’s been filled with jello and everything in front of him is blurred. Louis’ voice is ringing in the back of his head, and he realises that he did this. He stopped everything and saved them both. 

Nick throws himself out of the car, around the front and falls onto his hands and knees in the grass. He’s vaguely aware of the fact that he can’t breathe, but more preoccupied with the pain in his head that’s getting worse by the second. It’s a migraine of epic proportions, and he almost wishes that the truck had hit him. It might’ve hurt less than this.

“Nick? Nick! Can you _answer_ me?” Louis’ voice fades in slowly, the panicked tone rising by the second. Nick really wants to tell him to fuck off, to stop pretending to care, but they quite literally almost died just then, and he doesn’t think he can form words. “Bloody hell, would you say _something_?”

Nick pushes him away, collapsing fully onto the grass, clutching his head. It hurts. It really, really _hurts_ , and he doesn’t know what to do besides shove his face into the dewy grass and just hope that it all stops.

Louis shuts up after that, but Nick can still feel his nervous energy. It’s infectious, clogging up the air around them and mingling with his pain. He can feel almost everything that Louis is putting out, and he knows it’s involuntary but he wishes that Louis would know by now how to reign it in. Nick has tried countless times to teach him.

The pain doesn’t go away, but the longer than Nick sits with his face in the dirt, trying with all his might to receive some sort of healing energy from the ground below him, it responds. He starts to feel less as though there’s a mountain resting on his head, and more like he’s got himself caught in a mildly tight vice.

“I really hate you,” Nick grumbles into the grass. “I hate what you’ve done to me and I hate what you’ve had me believe for all of these years.”

His words float alongside the cricket chirps until they settle in Louis’ thick skull.

“If it’s any consolation, you were never meant to find out.”

Nick laughs, but it’s hollow, it hurts. “Yeah, it’s not. Appreciate the thoughtfulness on your part, though.”

Any anger that had been stuck lingering in Nick has dissipated within the last ten minutes. His near death experience has left him wondering what it is that he wants to come out of all of this. How does he want to let himself feel about this? Why should he bother wasting his anger, his health, his _magic_ on someone who apparently never cared about him?

“I do love you, you know. When I say it mean it. It’s just… I love him, too. And I thought I could have both of you. That’s all I wanted.”

Nick sits up, doesn’t even bother brushing the mud off of his ruined suit.

“You can’t have it all, Lou. Just because you think yourself King of Everything doesn’t mean you can fuck around with whomever you please. You see this?” Nick holds up the hand that still houses the ring Louis gave him. It’s sucking the life out of him; he doesn’t know why he continues to wear it. So he pulls it off, chucks it at Louis. “You made me a _promise_. And it meant nothing to you. You can have him, Lou. But you can’t have me anymore, and you sure as hell can’t have us both.”

The last bit of playful mirth leaves Louis’ eyes, and Nick feels better already. The truth sinks into Louis, into both of them, and nature apparently calls that a win because he can feel his magic tingling happily in his fingertips again. He’d been letting the lies eat at him, he’d been letting Louis think that he still had a shot and it had been consuming him at the very core of his being. All of his negative emotions had been sitting in that ring, a magical projection of everything that went wrong, now it’s gone.

And with this beautiful boy sitting across from him, looking as though he’s about to beg Nick to stay, his heart aches. It aches for the person he once hated, the person he once loved, the person he used to know. Louis is but an empty ghost of the bountiful spirit he used to be. He used to shed light on everything, had once brought a shine to Nick’s life that he didn’t know it could have. But now he leaves darkness on everything he touches, turning all that he loves as black as the night that he feels most comfortable in. He’s poison; he’s the grey cigarette smoke that curls in his lungs and he’s the black spray paint that covers the roses in their garden. 

When Louis doesn’t speak, Nick thinks it best to feed him but a crumb.

“I loved you, too. I hated you, then you made me love you. And I don’t know why you bothered.”

Nick stands up, because they probably look ridiculous sitting on the side of the road in their fancy suits.

“I thought you could fix me.”

Louis has said that countless times, but Nick doesn’t think he remembers. He doesn’t remember half of what he says these days.

“Only you can fix yourself, Louis. Get in the car, we’re going home.”

Louis listens, for once in his life, all of the fight apparently having left him.

Nick closes his eyes, listening to the engine idling for a few moments. When he opens them, he’s met with the ceiling of his bedroom. It’s freezing, is the first thing he notices. 

Louis stole the blankets again.

**Author's Note:**

> kudos and comments are so so appreciated
> 
> rebloggable post [here](https://nightwideopen.tumblr.com/post/160019715014/im-inside-out-youre-underneath-by-nightwideopen) :)


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